NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 20140017016: Can We Trust Computational Modeling for Medical Applications?

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by  NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Can we Trust Computational Modeling for Medical Applications?

Lealem Mulugeta1, Marlei Walton2, Emily Nelson3 and Jerry Myers3

1. Universities Space Research Association, Division of Space Life Sciences, Houston, TX
2. Wyle Science, Technology & Engineering Group, Houston, TX
3. NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH

Operations in extreme environments such as spaceflight pose human health risks that are currently not
well understood and potentially unanticipated. In addition, there are limited clinical and research data to
inform development and implementation of therapeutics for these unique health risks. In this light,
NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP) is leveraging biomedical computational models and
simulations (M&S) to help inform, predict, assess and mitigate spaceflight health and performance risks,
and enhance countermeasure development. To ensure that these M&S can be applied with confidence to
the space environment, it is imperative to incorporate a rigorous verification, validation and credibility
assessment (VV&C) processes to ensure that the computational tools are sufficiently reliable to answer
questions within their intended use domain. In this presentation, we will discuss how NASA’s Integrated
Medical Model (IMM) and Digital Astronaut Project (DAP) have successfully adapted NASA’s Standard
for Models and Simulations, NASA-STD-7009 (7009) to achieve this goal. These VV&C methods are
also being leveraged by organization such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institute
of Health (NIH) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to establish new M&S
VV&C standards and guidelines for healthcare applications. Similarly, we hope to provide some insight
to the greater aerospace medicine community on how to develop and implement M&S with sufficient
confidence to augment medical research and operations.